Wyoming Speed Limit

Back in the last century the speed limit in Montana was 'whatever is reasonable an proper' and in 1995 while driving with my mistress in a rented car I passed a piggy back truck at 110 on I-90 east. A Montana Statie hid about five car-lengths before the Peterbilt. Barbara told me to slow down.

"No, if I step on the brakes, the officer will know I'm guilty of something."

I maintained the speed. Nothing happened.

Four years later Maybe 1999. I was on a road trip with my father through Montana and Wyoming. My mother had passed two years previously and we both loved the road. My mother had loved the road too.

Someplace desolate and flat north of the Wind River Mountains on 120 I was driving ten miles over the speed limit. A state troopper car was coming in the opposite direction. The car passed and u-turned with lights flashing. I hadn't seen a car in twenty minutes. I pulled over to the breakdown lane and rolled down the window.

The green-shirted trooper asked why I was speeding at 75. He pulled down the brim of his campaign hat, as if to indicate he expected the truth.

"In other states you can drive ten years over the speed limit." I was a good citzen. At least I hadn't had anything tio drink at lunch on Thermopolis. that was the truth, not an explanation.

"Wyoming isn't other states. This is a warning. Kept it to 65."

I thanked the officer and time seemed to stop at 65. When my father took over, he leadfooted to 100. "They aren't any other police out here."

And he was right all the way to Cody.

The Aroma of Paradise / Gaspe Quebec

The ride after the ferry landing on the south shore of the St Lawrence to Gaspe took longer than my father and I had anticipated, even counting for a Quebec trooper stopping my father for speeding. 160 KPH in a 100 KPH zone. My father received a warning and we were back on our way, wheeling along the rugged coast line. The peninsula ended at our destination. We didn't make it that far. My father argued with me about speeding and threw me out of the car. In the middle of a forest with a view of the St. Lawrence. The Mercedes vanished over a hill. He wasn't coming back.

I started walking. Gaspe wasn't that far. The trooper stopped, heard my story, and took me to the small fishing town famousized by the monolithic islands trailing into the Atlantic. It was almost sunset. I spotted my father's car before a restaurant with a spectacular view.

I thanked 'flic' and walked to the restaurant. A delightful fragrance traipsed with the breeze. The source was inside the restaurant without a name. I entered like a Lagotto Romagnolo hunting a motherlode of truffles. My father sat at the window. I knocked on the wall of the kitchen. The chef turned from his frying pan filled with seafood. A bouillabaisse from the wild North Atlantic.

"Deux plats comme ca." I lifted two fingers. He smiled back at us. Every cook likes someone appreciating their efforts. The hostess sat me with my father.

"Bonne Vue."

"Tres bien." My father had learned his French in college. 1940. Mine came from working at the Bains-Douches in the 80s. The clerk didn't understand either of us. Quebec's dialect dated back to the 1600s.

Two glasses of Syvval white wine from Nova Scotia on the table, as if my father had been expecting me. Our meal was a bouillabaisse of local fish, clams, and shrimp. Delicious was an understatement. We were transported to paradise. Canada was a foreign land. Tomorrow we would be heading back to America. We said nothing about our fight. We toasted my mother and his wife. We were together with her tonight.

Here in the distant Quebec and its food.

Nothing like it south of the border.